2012 BLRT Grants

Providing incentives for foreign language faculty to teach and do research in a business context.

Faculty, doctoral students and language professionals are invited to apply for the 2012 BLRT grants. Application deadline is December 1, 2011, see online application form (a list of questions is available for your convenience and records).

Proposed projects can range from research on business foreign languages and language learners to creating materials or developing innovative teaching techniques for business foreign languages. See SHOWCASE for previously funded projects.

Three awards will be made in the following categories:

• One $3,000 grant for a project in a less commonly taught foreign language* or in a critical language**.
• Two $2,500 grants for projects in any foreign language (ESL and ASL are not applicable).

*Less Commonly Taught Foreign Languages (LCTLs) is a designation used in the United States for languages other than the three most commonly taught foreign languages in the US public schools which are French, German and Spanish.

**Critical Languages as Defined by the U.S. Government: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, and Urdu

Winners of the 2012 BLRT awards will be announced at the CIBER Business Language Conference that is being hosted by the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill on March 21-23, 2012. All BLRT applicants are encouraged to register for the conference. 2012 BLRT winners will present their research findings at the 2013 CIBER Business Foreign Language Conference which will be held at Indiana University.

Note: Doctoral students must submit a letter of support from their advisor along with the online application.

For more information, contact Lynnea Johnson at lsjohnso@illinois.edu or 217-333-8335.